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I moanedin protest when the intercom buzzed.

“Can you get the food?” Cece asked.

“Of course.”

I gave Cece’s shoulder a playful nibble before disentangling myself from them. It hadn’t even been a question of who was going to open the door. Cece wearing oversized clothes and wanting snuggles but not making me slide my arm under their clothes meant their dysphoria was acting up more than usual. Meeting strangers while feeling dysphoric was the absolute worst.

So, I rang up whoever was delivering the food and waited by the door. I wasn’t a huge fan of hovering by the door for however long it took the delivery person to make it up the stairs, but I hated the doorbell sound. And I didn’t want to get comfortable again just to have to get up again in two seconds. They always moved faster when I got comfortable. Murphy’s law or something.

Thankfully, it didn’t take too long this time.

Fuck.

The downside of our stupidly cheap apartment—so cheap there was no way it was all legal, but we weren’t about to say a thing about it—was that the intercom hadn’t been updated in decades. We didn’t have any of those screens that let you see who was ringing.

“Um. Hi.”Smooth, Jaime. “What are you doing here?”

Tony stared down at me while carrying a big plastic bag in one hand and the orange bag they gave at the boba tea shop in the other. He brought us boba.

I stepped aside before my brain started working again.

“Am I not welcome?”

“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I mean.” I shifted my weight between my feet. “One sec.”

Cece was going to go back to their murderous self, and they were going to kill me.

I almost whimpered when I reentered the living room.

They blinked drowsily. “Where’s the food?”

“About that.” I cleared my throat. I’d really thought I could give it a few years before confessing this. “I got Tony to fund our takeout, and he… um… is here.”

“He’s here?” Cece frowned. They’d really gotten sleepy while we were waiting for the food. Problem was, they woke up really fast. I had a theory it was because of all the time they spent in front of screens at work. The issue was their eyes glinted now when they glanced up at me. “Okay, Alpha.”

Fuck. Them.

“Alpha?”

I took it back. No fucking them for a year.

Or something.

I could feel the heat in my cheeks when I turned around to find Tony leaning against the doorframe. He didn’t fit at all in our tiny apartment, but it didn’t matter.

Of course Cece had spoken loud enough their voice would carry.

Asshole.

“So, how familiar are you with pup hierarchies? And furry culture? And the omegaverse?”

Tony smirked. I didn’t know why he was smirking, in case it needed to be said. “Marga and Jen liked to read Destiel fanfic and discuss it. At length.”

That was good enough. Better than I’d hoped.

I groaned. “Right. So. There are different types of pups. There’s Alpha pups, beta pups, omega pups. Some talk about delta pups, too. Anyway. I’m an Alpha. Cece is my beta. As in, my second-in-command? Kind of.”

Of course, my second-in-command was nowhere to be found when it came to helping me explain this.